Chapter 134: The Condition Is Very Serious

"I cannot treat Mr. Yang's condition!" Di Wei said, shaking his head after completing the examination.

"Why?" Duan Bowen asked quickly.

Di Wei spoke the truth: "Mr. Yang's current state is beyond my imagination. To put it simply, if anyone else had sustained these injuries, they should be wrapped up like a mummy, lying in a hospital bed, unable to move—not sitting here chatting and laughing as if nothing had happened."

Long Teng struggled to sit up from the hospital bed. "Is it really that serious?"

Di Wei nodded. "At the very least, it is far more serious than your suspected epididymitis. Mr. Yang, you really should go to a hospital for X-rays and specialized treatment instead of wandering around like this."

Yang Meng laughed. "I don't enter the government's gates while living, and I don't enter hospitals while dying. Besides, in your hospital, whether it's Pan Anguo or your father, neither of them are easy to deal with. I'm not lying to you—last time I was at your hospital, he nearly dissected my buddy as if he were a lab rat!"

Di Wei was stunned. "Mr. Yang, you must be joking!"

"Joking?" Yang Meng widened his eyes. "Do you think I'm kidding? Of the three people involved, two are right downstairs! You can go ask them yourself!"

Long Teng was taken aback. "Master, are you talking about Lobster and Erlengzi?"

Yang Meng nodded. "Of course. Those three were locked in the hospital for days, poked with all sorts of needles, and studied. Later, your father even brought an old man and a group of people in uniforms to my house to find me, and I kicked them right out. Oh, that seemed to be the Health Bureau people."

"An old man?" Di Wei thought for a moment and asked, "The old man you're talking about had white hair, medium build, and liked to wear a Zhongshan suit?"

Yang Meng recalled. "Yes, that's the one. Right, after I kicked them out, I heard them calling each other 'Director He' and 'Director Chen.' With so many departments in our country, who knows which god belongs to which temple?"

Di Wei's expression froze. After a long pause, he asked, "Is this Director Chen you mentioned in his early fifties, looking very sharp and dignified?"

Yang Meng spread his hands. "I couldn't tell if he was sharp or dignified, but that was his age, and he was wearing a uniform as if it were the real deal. Who is he, anyway?"

Di Wei said speechlessly, "Weren't you with Director Chen's daughter that day?"

"You mean Chen Jiao?" Yang Meng thought back. "Oh, right! You all said she was the daughter of some Chen Hanbin! So I actually kicked her father out!"

Di Wei gave a bitter smile. "Kicking her father out isn't the scary part. The scary part is that you also kicked out the other person, Director He."

"And what bureau is that?" Yang Meng asked, puzzled.

Di Wei pointed to the ceiling. "The Healthcare Bureau. They serve the people at the very top."

"The people at the top? Does he have connections with the Heavens?" Yang Meng teased.

Di Wei explained, "I mean the top! The higher-ups!"

"I know you mean the higher-ups! Could it be the ones below? Isn't that the underworld? What's the point of treating diseases when people are already dead?"

Di Wei wanted to continue, but Yang Meng waved him off. "Don't bother telling me. Even if you say it, I won't listen, and even if I hear it, I'll pretend I didn't. He serves the leaders, not me! I don't need anything from him, so why should I care how impressive he is? Is he going to use his power to suppress me? Hmph, if I can't afford to provoke him, can't I just stay out of his way?"

Di Wei didn't know what to say. Most people would be eager to build connections with such prominent figures, but here was this guy, desperately trying to get rid of them.

Seeing the look in Di Wei's eyes, Yang Meng knew what he was thinking and laughed heartily. "Dr. Di, you're a doctor, so why is your perspective less clear than mine? What good does it do me to know them? A person can know many people in a lifetime, but what is the point of knowing so many? Take me, for example—I used to be a food delivery driver. And Long Teng? He's a second-generation wealthy heir, an entrepreneur, a martial artist—he has a string of titles weighing him down. What does our acquaintance matter? With such a huge gap in our status, would he truly value me? No matter how impressive he is, what does it have to do with me? Oh, the only relation might be that in the future, when I'm bragging to others, I could say, 'I have a friend named Long Teng, he's so amazing...' But the person who says that is truly pathetic! No matter how great Long Teng is, how does it help my life? Such social interaction is ineffective; it does nothing for my life."

Long Teng said helplessly, "Master, let's not use me as an example, okay? You're my master now!"

Yang Meng laughed. "That's because I've become strong myself. If I hadn't, put your hand on your heart and tell me: could you be friends with a food delivery guy? Even if you could talk to him, could you have a deep friendship? Could you value him? Of course, I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it's truly rare! Effective social interaction must start with strengthening oneself. When you are strong, your social circle becomes strong."

Di Wei remarked, "Mr. Yang, I can see you are indeed 'strong.' If anyone else were in your condition, they would have been in the hospital long ago!"

Hearing this, Duan Bowen asked hurriedly, "Dr. Di, how exactly should Mr. Yang recover now?"

Di Wei pondered. "I can't judge that. I'm just an emergency room doctor. If I encountered this during my shift, I would have sent him to orthopedics long ago. But Mr. Yang won't go to the hospital."

Duan Bowen asked Yang Meng, confused, "Mr. Yang, if you don't want to go to the municipal hospital, could we go to another one?"

Yang Meng shook his head. "Actually, every time I think of hospitals, I only recall embarrassing things."

"Embarrassing things?" Duan Bowen was puzzled.

Yang Meng nodded. "You don't understand my hometown. To use your words, it's a place where 'harsh mountains and bad waters breed unruly people.' Let me put it this way: for the first two years I was out working, I still had to use telegrams to contact my family! Now you can imagine how poor that place was. I bought my dad a mobile phone, and guess how he had to make calls? There was a big tree behind our house, and my dad had to use a ladder to climb to the top of the tree just to get a signal! Of course, it's better now; at least there's a mobile signal."

Duan Bowen's eyes widened. "There are places like that?"

Yang Meng nodded. "Just because you don't know about them doesn't mean they don't exist."

Duan Bowen asked, "And then?"

Yang Meng gave a bitter smile. "My hometown was so poor and remote that poverty alleviation work never caught up, but the family planning policy was strictly enforced. The Family Planning Commission staff were stationed in our village. Back then, my parents wanted a daughter, and in the end, they had no choice but to take me to the county hospital to pretend I was a mentally disabled child. That's how I got my younger sister."

Long Teng said indignantly, "I'm speechless. Instead of focusing on what's important—like how to drive poverty alleviation and wealth creation—they were obsessed with family planning. That's putting the cart before the horse!"

Duan Bowen disagreed. "I actually think it's correct. How does that saying go? 'The poorer you are, the more children you have; the more children you have, the poorer you get.' The more impoverished an area is, the more motivated they are to have children because children become labor once they grow up! But because of poverty, these children cannot receive a good education. What happens when they grow up? Some go to cities to work in labor-intensive industries, and most remain in the countryside to farm. These are social issues. If the population grew that much, our country wouldn't even be able to guarantee food security."

Yang Meng continued, "Hmm, labor-intensive industries? Like me delivering food? Well, this topic is a bit too big, let's not stray too far. But Secretary Duan is right about one thing: the education of us poor children couldn't keep up. When we get to the city, we get tricked. Back when I first arrived in the city, I really thought the streets were paved with gold. I spent all day thinking about how to get rich, and as a result, I got scammed."

"You got scammed too?" Long Teng asked, puzzled.

Yang Meng smiled bitterly. "Why wouldn't I? Back then, my heart was bigger than the sky, and I thought I was invincible. After attending a few lectures, I joined an insurance company, ready to 'challenge myself' and 'change the future'! Then I started selling insurance."

Duan Bowen asked, "That doesn't count as being scammed, does it? Although mentioning insurance agents can be as annoying as mentioning Amway representatives, insurance itself is a good thing. Everyone needs insurance."

Yang Meng snapped his fingers. "BINGO, you're right. I thought so too, and I even used my own money to buy insurance from my own company. But one time when I got sick and went to the hospital, they told me I wasn't covered."

"Why?" Everyone was stunned.

Yang Meng smiled bitterly. "That's why I said I was scammed. The insurance company I joined was called 'Handong Insurance Company,' but our country only has 'Handong Life Insurance Company.' They were a fraudulent company, selling dog meat while hanging a sheep's head sign! Using fake, realistic-looking storefronts and fake websites... Sigh, a bloody lesson learned! And when I looked back, most of the people who were scammed along with me were people with low levels of education like I had. That's why I'm reading like my life depends on it now."

"Mr. Yang, regardless of anything else, your health is the most important thing." Duan Bowen thought for a moment. "Since you don't want to go to the hospital, we can invite doctors to come here. Dr. Di, do you have any good recommendations? What do we need to do to treat Mr. Yang here?"

Di Wei held up one finger. "There is only one way."